Weekly Jobless Claims Decline

Number of People Seeking Unemployment Benefits Falls to Five-Year Low

WASHINGTON—The number of U.S. workers seeking new unemployment benefits fell to a five-year low last week, a new sign of a modestly improving labor market.

Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, fell by 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 326,000 in the week ended July 27, the Labor Department said Thursday. That was the lowest number since early 2008 and better than the 345,000 new claims forecast by a Dow Jones Newswires survey...